Fire Suppression - Boomer's , Heli's , Tanker's , Trucks, ect

[Born2clearcut]

Most of these fire suppression machine never logged a stick of wood , they however have saved alot of life's, machines and wood in the forest industry, so with this type of background I think they deserve a thread of its own .

 

[Born2clearcut]

Mar's Waterbomber

 

[Birken Vogt]

What's the picture of the small fire below the one of the yellow truck?

 

[Jim D]

Thanks for the pictures of the Martin Mars. 65 years of very remarkable history there.

For many years it has pleased me that BC Canadians have appreciated the unique value of those aircraft, those aircraft that were to be scraped fifty years ago by the US Gov. Thank you for saving them.

 

[Knocker of rock]

What's the picture of the small fire below the one of the yellow truck?

Looks to be the start of a bigger fire out of slash.

 

[Knocker of rock]

Thanks for the pictures of the Martin Mars. 65 years of very remarkable history there.

For many years it has pleased me that BC Canadians have appreciated the unique value of those aircraft, those aircraft that were to be scraped fifty years ago by the US Gov. Thank you for saving them.

Had the pleasure of watching those operate out of the end of Howe Sound while we were rock climbing at Squamish in 1990. Heard a rumble, and here comes a 747 with propellers!

 

[Knocker of rock]

This web site is nothing but wild land fire fighting: http://www.wildlandfire.com/descr/descr_air.htm

 

[Born2clearcut]

Marianas Mars

Here is a couple of pictures of the Marianas Mars . Picture1 was taken in 1958 ,Picture 2 was taken in April 1961 . The Mariannas Mars was converted into a waterbomber 08-Aug-1959 , and into service Spring 1960. On 23-Jun-1961 two months after picture 2 was taken the Mariannas Mars crashed into Mount Moriarty near Parksville, BC during a regular drop run. Some reports suggest a failure of the water drop mechanism, which left the aircraft too heavy to climb quickly enough to avoid the mountain. However, no definite cause has officially been documented for this accident. Here is alittle more history on the Mar's waterbomber's http://www.oldwings.nl/content/mars/mars_a.htm

 

[jackd]

Great shots - I haven't seen them before. I remember the summer that the Marianas was brought into service - we used to go to 'Smith's Landing (now Sproat Lake Provincial Park) and we would be right under the approach path when she came in for landing in the main arm of Sproat Lake. Pretty impressive to a 5 year old. I still remember looking up and seeing the dark blue colour of the belly/wings when she was overhead. The day of the crash was a sad one - everyone was quite shocked by the event. I blame my early infatuation with these aircraft for luring me into the airline industry.

 

[Born2clearcut]

Great shots - I haven't seen them before.

These picture are from my private collection ,as far as i know Jack they only been seen by family members . If you would like the full size pictures Jack pm me and we'll figure out something

 

[Knocker of rock]

I would be content for these birds to retire to flying museum status. Doesn't seem the risk to airframe and aircrew to use seventy year old planes in such an arduous manner when replacements are available. But such is the case with almost the entire water-bomber fleet.

 

[245dlc]

Pretty awesome pictures there. The province here has a number of older CL-215's and CL-415's and I've always been fascinated by them and have been fortunate enough to see them in action a few times over the years. The last two years have been very dry in this corner of Manitoba extending into Ontario and Minnesota, we hardly got any snow last winter and so far this winter is shaping up to be the same way so I'm sure I'll be seeing more grass and bush fire action in the spring and summer. Here's a short clip I got of a CL-215 trying to knock down a brush fire near Vita, MB last year after days of heavy wind up to 90km/hr.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw1eafBiI1Q

 

[jackd]

These picture are from my private collection ,as far as i know Jack they only been seen by family members . If you would like the full size pictures Jack pm me and we'll figure out something

I'll send you a pm real soon....

I fought several fires on the ground during my time at Sproat Lake Division. Usually the Mars were being used in conjunction with our poor efforts on the ground. Well at least it got you off the rigging for a couple of days and would usually cause them to shut the bush down a little bit earlier than they had planned. I remember one fire out in Ash River - up on the Beaufort Range - where a whole unlogged parcel was burning. I guess someone's smoke thrown out the window started it going. Our Wajax pumps weren't doing anything because when the water you put on a hot area evaporated, the fire would start right up again. The Bell 206's from the tanker base were trying to drop loads on burning snags but their blade wash just sent the load off to the side.

Bring in the Mars. We had a ring side seat for the whole event. First they would get us the hell out of the way because a drop was coming in. We would scamper uphill and watch. We could see the both the Phillipine and the Hawaii do their pickups in Sproat Lake and head around getting ready to make an approach. They were synchronized in their flight pattern - when one was picking up, the other was dropping. The first sign of impending action was the arrival of the Goose bird dog doing a simulated pass to check things out. It would whizz by and head off waggling its wings - getting ready to lead the next Mars in over the fire. The first sign of the Mars approaching (you couldn't see it off behind the trees) was that the ground started shaking and then the monster would come roaring out of the north and drop the load. It then veered off and waggled its wings just like the Goose, but a hell of a lot slower... I felt I could almost touch the thing because we were uphill and looking right at it in front of us. Needless to say there were no more burning snags, or hot spots to deal with. Very impressive and I will never forget that day. So we would then grab another pop and sit back and watch the next Mars come in and do it all again. It beat setting chokers and there aren't no bugs when you're fighting fire....

 

[theironoracle]

has anyone ever seen a marooka track dump truck with a water tank insert on wildland firefighting? seems it would carry more water than anything else i have seen on the trails. post pics if you have them. would something like this be worth building?.....theironoracle

 

[Born2clearcut]

Not sure what one this is , maybe someone can identify her

 

[jackd]

Once more you amaze me. I'm not sure which Goose that is - it might be CF-VFU which was the bird dog, but the blue paint scheme makes me think otherwise. It was imported into Canada by FIFT in 1967 but these shots might pre-date that. What year were the Mars painted red and the Goose as well? The Mars might be the Phillipine because of the side door dumping configuration but I'm not sure what year your shot is from. It isn't the Hawaii - I'm quite sure that it dumps out the bottom. I didn't know these planes had a blue/white/red paint scheme for early operations.

 

[Born2clearcut]

Sry Jack i forgot the year . the year is July 1962

 

[jackd]

So that would make this a different Goose - maybe the Dryad or Dryad II (CF-IOL or CF-HUZ). So that was the Marianas was it? Great shots.

 

[jackd]

Duplicate post of the previous.

 

[trakloader]

That looks like Dryad, the M&B big shots would often fly around to see if things were going okay, and I am not positive, but I think they may have used her as bird dog before FIFT had their own.